Over a year ago, with the support of The AVI CHAI Foundation, Prizmah worked with Rosov Consulting to explore how day school professionals deepen their leadership skills. That report, “The Learning Leadership Landscape: Experiences and Opportunities for Jewish Day School Personnel,” uncovered numerous leverage points for influencing the professional talent pipeline. Not surprisingly, the study reiterated just how important the relationship is between senior school professionals and their lay leaders, particularly the Head of School-Board Chair relationship. Now, again with Rosov Consulting, we are conducting research about the ways volunteer leaders contribute to the quality and vitality of our schools. Multiple waves of data collection and interviews are underway, and in the coming months we will have empirical information to strengthen our work in this critical area.

Coming to the Prizmah Conference with your lay or professional partner will set you and your school up to make the most of the learning experience. You will find sessions designed specifically for lay-head teams and for board members. Sharing the kind of extraordinary environment of the largest gathering of the Jewish day school field will enable you to take the “dreams we dare to dream” together and construct new possibilities for your school.

“Deepening talent” is one of the four objectives of Prizmah’s Strategic Plan. We know that talent drives excellence throughout schools. This month we focus on how one school takes seriously the charge to tend their senior leadership team, creating an environment that enables all school professionals to unlock their fullest potential and inspire learning and development for their students.

“Their success and growth is my responsibility,” Rabbi Dr. Rafi Cashman says proudly. In just his second year as the Head of School of Toronto’s Netivot HaTorah Day School (a coeducational Orthodox elementary school with enrollment of 670), Rabbi Dr. Cashman is whole-heartedly invested in the talent on his senior leadership team. 

At the beginning of this year, the first fifteen minutes of each weekly, two hour leadership team meeting was dedicated to professional development, but it soon became clear that the full time was needed for administrative discussion. Cashman invited his 12-member team to an additional weekly hour-long meeting after school hours and created a curriculum based on seven modules of leadership, including topics like trust and accountability, managing/supervising staff, work-life balance, and models of leadership.

The group sees this time as a chance to deepen their own knowledge and to tend to the relationships, group dynamics, and communication strategies that are core to being a well-functioning team. They share a commitment to take away at least one thing each week to inform the rest of their work, ultimately permeating the culture of the school as a whole.

Cashman is a veteran of numerous leadership training programs. He was a Wexner Fellow and a Davidson Scholar (during his doctoral work), he recently completed the Day School Leadership Training Institute, and participated in the Harvard’s Art of Leadership course, sponsored by The AVI CHAI Foundation. He designed the curriculum using many of the texts and ideas that he took away from these experiences, notably Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Lencioni and Rethinking Leadership by Thomas Sergiovanni.

“Years ago Alex Pomson once told me that many schools invest a great deal in the head of school search process and expect their newly-hired head to be a kind of savior, when the real success of schools depends on developing the capacity of mid-level leadership.  Investing in this group is a core part of my job,” Cashman says.

Is there something innovative or exciting happening at your school that Prizmah can spotlight in a future issue? Email Senior Director of Marketing and Communications Cheryl Weiner Rosenberg to let us know!

• Financial Sustainability: How might we expand the quality and accessibility of our schools, rethinking our business models and educational practices?

• Educational Innovation: How might we harness, learn, and build leading practices to foster a culture of continuous improvement and experimentation within schools and/or across the field of Jewish day schools?
• Deepen Talent: How might we invest in the pipeline of teachers, administrators, and lay leaders, empowering them to transform their schools into vibrant centers of learning and Jewish community?
• Making the Case: How might we develop a narrative to communicate the impact of Jewish day schools - broadening our community, strengthening our lay leader base, and attracting new families?

Prizmah Pop Up DMV: Taking Questions to the Next Level
For DC area school principals and teachers!
With Melanie Eisen
Prizmah's Director, Educational Innovation

Location: Milton Gottesman Jewish Day School of the Nation's Capital
Monday, February 25, 2019
10am - 12:30pm

RSVP HERE Space is Limited so RSVP soon!

Listening to Your Inner Voice
In last month’s leadership spotlight, we shared a note and resources on kavana-- intention-setting. This month, we reflect on the intentions we’ve made and how we’ve measured up. In a blog by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks about “the challenge and the consolation of leadership,” he explains that things are not black-and-white--that we are part of a profound humanity that makes mistakes, learns, and grows. If your intentions haven’t been fulfilled as you’ve hoped, remember that leadership is a process that constantly evolves. You can celebrate how far you’ve come and take a moment to re-assess how you may bridge your intentions with practical actions. If your inner voice has called you to Jewish leadership to bring you where you are, take Rabbi Sacks’ invitation to remember that “it is that same inner voice that ultimately holds the cure.”

Prizmah is pleased to share the information below, but we do not endorse any specific resource listed. Each month we feature a selection of wonderful events, opportunities, and resources happening in the Jewish education world and beyond.  A full list of resources can be found here.

• Website: http://www.summit.jtfn.org/

• Who is it for?: The Summit is specially-designed with sessions for leaders of Jewish teen philanthropy programs, as well as for Jewish educators, professionals, and lay leaders from the wider field of Jewish teen programming and engagement. We will network, learn from one another, innovate, share resources, and grow our knowledge together.
• The mission of the Jewish Teen Funders Network is to strengthen Jewish engagement and identity through supporting and elevating the field of Jewish teen philanthropy. We achieve this by setting field standards, providing training and resources to professionals, mainstreaming philanthropy into the Jewish teen experience, and serving as the lead catalyst for new programs. www.jtfn.org